The archive / Impressionism / Two Sisters (On the Terrace)
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Two Sisters (On the Terrace)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir · 1841–1919
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3 variations + a matched story print, every standard frame ratio. 300 DPI · sRGB · personal-use license.
Museum-quality giclée on Hahnemühle German Etching — heavyweight 310gsm, acid-free, velvety matte. Made to order & shipped.
Sizes in the download
Ready-to-print files at every size below — each drops straight into a standard frame at 300 DPI, nothing cropped:
Each of these also prints big-wall at 150 DPI — up to about 36″ on the short side (so the 24×36″ becomes 36×54″), for a step-back view. Or print the borderless master, the full-resolution scan, sharp to about 30×40″.
The work
The sisters were never sisters.
Despite its title, the painting shows no siblings at all: the seated young woman was an 18-year-old aspiring actress, Eugénie Marie Darlaud, known as Jeanne Darlaud, and the little girl in the painting has never been identified. "Two Sisters" was Renoir's own invention rather than a statement of fact.
A picture of many names
Even its title kept changing hands.
Renoir called it Les deux sœurs, but the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel recorded it on purchase as Femme sur une terrasse au bord de la Seine, and it was later listed as Femme sur une terrasse (Chatou). The parenthetical "On the Terrace" we use today derives from those dealer titles.
Look closer
Two halves of one canvas, painted two ways.
Technical imaging shows Renoir treated the two halves of the canvas very differently: the figures are finely modeled with a controlled brush while the background stays loose and sketch-like. X-ray and infrared imaging also reveal he altered the woman's head and hat and brought her right arm closer to her body, using red lake to outline some of the forms.
I am struggling with trees in bloom, with women and children, and wish to see nothing beyond that.— Pierre-Auguste Renoir, letter to Théodore Duret, written from Chatou, 18 April 1881
The file & the facts
- Title
- Two Sisters (On the Terrace)
- Artist
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Year
- 1881
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original
- 100.4 × 80.9 cm
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Rights
- Open access · personal use
- File
- 300 DPI · sRGB · JPEG
